6 Things NOT To Do The First Time You Sleep With Someone

So you’ve met Mr. Right. (Or Mr. Right Now.) You’re a good girl, so you’ve waited the requisite amount of time and you just know that tonight is the night you’ve been dreaming of all year/month/week/minute.

You look good, you smell good and you’re wearing the only matching lingerie set you own. All signs point to go.

You’d think with this many green lights that there’s no way a lady could mess this up. Maybe you’d think that, but you’d be wrong. Here are just a few of the ways this could go south in a hurry:

1. Don’t depend on him for birth control. Yes, he should carry condoms, but ultimately it’s up to you — it’s your body and you need to keep yourself safe. I’m not saying that’s the way it should be, but the sad fact is, even the nicest seeming guy isn’t always as invested in keeping us disease and pregnancy-free. Even if you’re the kind of traditional lady who insists your date pay for everything (after all, you’re giving him the gift of your company), do not let stubbornness get in the way of your safe good time. And nothing ruins a good time like a below-the-belt itch or unplanned pregnancy.

2. For Pete’s sake, don’t cry. Some of us have a weird habit of occasionally bursting into tears during sex — it’s the rush of endorphins that does it, so blame biology! But, if there’s any way to pull yourself together the first time you make sweet love to your new boyfriend, try to. Waterworks will lead him to believe that either he hurt you–and in that case, will never again do that thing again — or he’ll think that you’re a mental case. Either way, you probably won’t be seeing him again anytime soon.

3. Leave the comparison talk at home. You know how almost every woman you know thinks she’s fat? Yeah, well most guys think they’re, ahem, less endowed than they actually are. Imagine if you thought a size zero was the way you thought you should look just because the model in Vogue was. Sigh.